OPEC: American shale companies will keep dominating the market

American oil shale companies, that turned the whole energy industry upside down, in the coming years will absorb most of the growth in demand for oil, OPEC’s new report says.

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However, the figures will grow among all market participants after many years of rapid growth in US oil production and unchanged OPEC production, OPEC experts say.

The forecast published on Tuesday notes that the battle for a share in the oil market against the US shale will last for many more years. The US slate revolution paved the way for a three-year slump in oil prices, which led to a drop in oil from more than $ 100 per barrel in 2014 to current $ 60. This exerted pressure on OPEC's oil-dependent economies, and led to a reduction in production in 2017.

According to OPEC, the forecast for oil demand looks more optimistic than that in the last year. The group raised forecasts for oil demand in 2022 by 2.2 million barrels per day in the latest World Oil Outlook report.

This is largely due to the high demand in the developing world. But OPEC also expects that demand in developed countries will grow until 2019, and will not peak this year according to an earlier forecast. OPEC now sees that demand will reach 102.3 million barrels per day in 2022, compared with 95.4 million barrels per day in 2016.

The US will satisfy most of the growing demand in the world, increasing oil production by 3.8 million barrels per day until 2022, OPEC said. This will be approximately 75% of the total supply growth outside the 14 OPEC countries, which will provide about one-third of the world's oil.

Much of this growth will come from US shale deposits, where drillers use advanced methods such as hydraulic fracturing to extract oil and gas from shale rock.

Nevertheless, OPEC considers oil production from the United States and other countries, including Canada, Russia and Argentina, which will reach a maximum by 2025. Production will reach a boom, because shale companies concentrates on drilling its best areas where they can extract oil and gas at relatively low costs. Shale wells initially deliver a lot of oil, but their production is rapidly declining. Approximately at the same time, when the peaks of shale oil production will be reached, the years of weak growth from the OPEC countries will end.

After a stagnation of more than 33 million barrels per day, OPEC production will increase sharply to 41.4 million barrels per day by 2040. In this case, OPEC's share of the world oil market will grow from 40% last year to 46% in 2040.

According to the forecast of OPEC, the demand for oil will increase to 111.1 million barrels per day by 2040, but this growth will slow down over the years. OPEC believes that by 2040, oil and natural gas will still account for more than half of the total world energy.